Lily Tomlin once said, “I always wanted to be somebody when I grew up. I should have been more specific.”
It is, perhaps, symptomatic of the weakness of our faith that we question or have second thoughts regarding our life choices. I’ve spent most of my life as an “art teacher” or something that, at least, might fit under that broad heading. I rationalized my work in a multitude of ways: I was helping students to see and to strengthen their perception. I was providing moments of peace and pleasure in the midst of their difficult lives and, somehow, hoping to make life a little less difficult for them. I was increasing their competency with materials. I was introducing them to people (“artists”) who, despite the pain and difficulty of life, persisted – and were able to extract a measure of truth and beauty. And so on…
It’s taken far longer than it should have, but I’ve realized (I would say “finally realized,” but I know that thoughts often change and that ‘realizations’ are seldom ‘final.’) – I’ve realized that the importance of work in the arts rests with the maker or performer rather than in any recipient or audience. Art-making matters because communication in the physical (words, images, gestures) convinces us that the physical always speaks to us; that meaning is always present – revealed in the people, places, and things around us.
The effort to give tangible form to the ineffable leads us to admit that physical form can reveal the transcendent. This is particularly true in the natural, which is less limited and less contingent than the synthetic. This accounts for much of the current culture’s estrangement from God. Absorption in the synthetic is a self-imposed blindness. The scales must be removed from our eyes.
Art-making teaches us that incarnation is possible, that the aspects of our lives that cannot be described in words need not remain entirely hidden and that physical form can be a vehicle of revelation and self-revelation. Certainly, as teachers, we’ve affected the lives of those around us and we can only hope and pray that we’ve done no harm – but the paintings we make, the work we do, and the tasks we’re given have more to do with shaping us than impacting others.